Beaudry, Mary C.

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Northeast Historical ArchaeologyVolume 27 Article 11998Editor's IntroductionMary C. BeaudryFollow this and additional works at: http://orb.binghamton.edu/nehaPart of the Archaeological Anthropology CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion inNortheast Historical Archaeology by an authorized editor of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contactORB@binghamton.edu.Recommended CitationBeaudry, Mary C. (1998) "Editor's Introduction," Northeast Historical Archaeology: Vol. 27 27, Article 1.https://doi.org/10.22191/neha/vol27/iss1/1 Available at: http://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol27/iss1/1;~ Editors' Introduction In this volume of Northeast Historical Archaeology you will find an eclectic mix of articles, commentary, and reviews. Again, it has taken us much longer to pull everything together than we anticipated, but I think that readers will find here matters of substance in addition to many items of interest. The journal opens with another of our occasional forums, this one on public outreach. Stefan Beilinski, a public historian, describes the Colonial Albany Social History Project that features a public slide program accompanied by the peppy "Albany Theme" that many of us were introduced to at the CNEHA meetings in Albany. Beilinski advocates his approach as a way to draw in audiences and engage them directly in his people-oriented approach to his-tory (I know I still find that celebratory Albany tune playing in my head every so often!). Two archaeologists, James Gibb and Carol ~cDavid, respond to Beilinski. The exchange IS not confrontational or even controversial but offers a fresh perspective on efforts a~ public outreach. We're proud to open the articles section with the first-prize winner of the Student Paper Competition from our meetings held in Altoona, Pennsylvania. In his essay Michael Scholl takes an innovative approach, framing his consideration of the rise and fall of a family farm in Delaware in the context of the family's religious beliefs. Scholl attributes the success of the farm and eventual ruin of the family to the Methodist Discipline; you may not agree with his conclusions, but I am certain you will find his approach intriguing and compelling. Barbara Luedtke's article on "do-it-your-self" gunflints from the Aptuxcet Trading Post site in Bourne, Massachusetts, brings to light an interesting aspect of life on the colonial frontier. Luedtke brings her considerable experience as a lithics expert to the analysis of altered ballast flint at Aptuxcet, concluding that colonists, not Native Americans, were responsible for the inexpert and often Northeast Historical Arc/UleologyNol. 27 1998 v appallingly bad workmanship these specimens reveal. A critical research issue surfaces in Lynda Wood and Janet Young's discussion of the accidental recovery and subsequent identifica-tion of a single human skeleton in Dundas County, Ontario. They stress the need for a cautious and thorough approach to making such identifications and outline the procedures that they undertook to correct an initial mis-identification of the remains of this juvenile. As the authors point out, archaeoiogists ·and osteologists are more and more often drawn into efforts to make individual identification of human remains from the historical period; their cautionary tale is also a useful primer on procedures that will help avoid errors in iden-tifying such remains. The recent work at Jamestown Island spon-sored by the National Park Service and con-ducted by archaeologists from the College of William and Mary and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has resulted in a reconsideration of many aspects of the island's landscape and cultural features. Here Gerald Kelso et al. draw upon several lines of evi-dence to interpret the pollen sequence from the ditch of the fortification at Jamestown known as the Turf Fort, which was begun in 1665 and probably abandoned shortly after it was com-pleted in 1668. The pollen data add to the doc-umented history of the fort by corroborating the reconstructed temporal framework but, ~ore importantly, provide a detailed perspec-tive on the formation processes that occurred during construction, abandonment, and filling of the ditch as well as a wealth of information about the 17th-century landscape and plant community surrounding the town site of Jamestown. David Brown's comprehensive study of masonry structures in 17th-ceJL,ury Virginia considers the history of scholarship on the topic, then presents a phased overview of masonry housing in the Virginia colony throughout the 17th century. Brown examines vi Northeast Historical Archaeology/Val. 27, 1998 the reasons for building in brick or stone and the meanings that masonry structures had for their owners and for others, placing his discus-sion of masonry structures within the context of the prevalence of earthfast building in the 17th-century Chesapeake. His findings com-plicate the architectural history of 17th-century Virginia in fascinating ways, and, as Brown makes clear, set the stage for further research and debate about the nature of housing on the Chesapeake frontier. Our research note considers a single arti-fact, unprepossessing in appearance but evoca-tive nonetheless. Ann-Eliza Lewis presents a find from the archaeology of Boston's Central Artery relocation project: a lawn bowl that may be the oldest bowling ball in North America. She considers the bowl in light of attitudes towards recreation in Puritan Boston and its recovery in a 17th-century privy associ-ated with Kathleen Nanny Naylor, a woman who left an indelible mark in the history of early Boston. The volume closes with reviews of two books likely to be of interest to our readers, one a general reader in maritime archaeology and the other a popular treatment of the archae-ology of military sites in the Champlain cor-ridor of Vermont and New York. Both books come to us from long-time members of the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology, and we congratulate them on their fine new contributions to historical archaeology. Mary C. Beaudry, Editor 

Editor\u27s Introduction

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Editor\u27s Introduction

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